Prime Minister tells Labour leader he's too weak to stand up to trade unions and too weak to run the country

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Chris Harlow

Prime Minister’s Questions today was dominated by David Cameron’s heckling of Ed Miliband’s Labour party and the high level of influence reportedly held over them by the Unite trade union.

Unite has been accused of putting pressure on Labour MPs by reviewing its funding to them, ensuring that the policies they promote are in line with their own stances. Funding for an individual MP can be in the realm of £1,500 per year. Some 70 per cent of Labour candidates for the 2015 election are linked to trade unions, with over half of those affiliated with Unite. Former home secretary David Blunkett warned Labour was in danger of ending up in the “graveyard”.

Cameron seized hold of the story, accusing Labour of having their policies written by Len McCluskey (head of Unite) and Miliband for being “too weak to sack his health secretary, too weak to stand up to Unite, too weak to run Labour, and certainly too weak to run the country”.

The rhetoric is similar to that Cameron used last week when describing the Labour policy towards debating EU membership as "weak weak weak".